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THE WORLD; Where All (and None) Lead

FOR all the attention that has surrounded the stroke that toppled Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi from power, the change at the nominal helm of the country with the world's second-largest economy has little real import.

The Japanese people have long been aware of that. ''Whoever becomes prime minister, it doesn't change anything,'' said Junko Ota, a 39-year-old housewife shopping in Ginza the other day. ''That's what's sad about Japan.''

Her observation contains a truth that the rest of the world has yet to acknowledge about Japan, despite the efforts of many scholars and observers to explain it: political leadership in Japan has always been more irrelevant than in other countries.

''We have been suffering from the fact that there is no one ultimately responsible to the people at large and to foreign governments and leaders and international organizations,'' said Hidekazu Kawai, a professor at Gakushuin University. ''The nominal leader is not always the strongest man, and no one man is strong enough to dominate.''

Take, for example, how poorly the economy has been managed in the last decade. The buck does not stop at the prime minister's desk, nor on any one person's desk. Decisions are made by a consortium of business associations, government bureaucracies and groups of politicians. No individual can be held responsible, nor can anyone take credit.

''Leaders do not matter in modern Japan, where situations are managed collectively, not by an individual,'' said William R. Farrell, head of a business consultancy, Dynamic Strategies Asia.

To be sure, many political figures wield power here, like former Prime Ministers Kiichi Miyazawa, Yasuhiro Nakasone and even Noboru Takeshita, who has been bed-ridden with undisclosed medical problems for almost a year. Prime Minister Obuchi, as head of the largest faction in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, was powerful. And Hiromu Nonaka, now No. 2 in the new government, is considered by many to be Japan's most powerful man.

But in the West, that very phrase -- ''Japan's most powerful man'' -- more often clouds an understanding of Japan's power structure than clarifies it. None of these men has the power to make decisions or prescribe policy on his own, and as Japan is increasingly forced to stitch itself into the global economy, that is a problem.

''A state, whatever definition you use, has a core to its identity,'' said Karel Van Wolferen, author of ''The Enigma of Japanese Power,'' perhaps the seminal book on the Japanese power structure. ''Here you have federations of bureaucratic bodies, both business and government, determining policy, and groups of politicians play a role in that. But there is no such thing as a center of political accountability.''

So the question arises: Who is the opposite number to the American president or British prime minister? To whom should concerns and requests be addressed? From whom can commitments be extracted?

The difficulties manifest themselves in several ways. Most recently, the United States and Japan have squared off over the deregulation of the telecommunications market here. No one denies that in 1998 Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto promised President Clinton that Japan would dramatically lower the fees the former government telephone monopoly charges competitors for connecting their customers to its customers. But the government has simply ignored the promise, illustrating how little power a prime minister really has here.

Similarly, a home health care program for the elderly that was one of Prime Minister Obuchi's biggest accomplishments was watered down by Parliament at the demand of a group of politicians led by Shizuka Kamei, who heads the second-largest faction within the ruling party.

THE fragmented nature of the ruling party, which is really a confederation of five or more factions, is partly responsible for the prime minister's weakness. Unlike the British prime minister, the Japanese prime minister must horse-trade to win as much support from various factions as possible.

Thus, Yoshiro Mori, the new prime minister, was chosen by party elders who valued his good relationship with the ruling party's coalition partner, the Komei Party, rather than his leadership skills or vision.

The prime minister ''is not strong enough to control the whole party,'' said Takeshi Sasaki, a political science professor at Tokyo University. ''He controls the party in cooperation with the leaders of the factions and the party elders, but not on his own.''

Many suggest that a colorless figurehead is all the Japanese people want, that a strong leader would mesh poorly with the country's desire for stability and harmony.

But a number of laws were adopted last year with the intention of giving more power to the prime minister and his cabinet.

One was a freedom of information law that, although weak by American standards, greatly enhances transparency here.

The public has also been treated to a somewhat stiff version of prime minister's question time, during which for the first time cabinet officials have been forced to stand up in Parliament and submit to questions.

''Those kinds of things tend to keep people focused on the prime minister as the person in charge, the person who's responsible, and that's a big change,'' Professor Kawai said.

Recently, people who live in Tokyo have begun confessing a liking for Shintaro Ishihara, the capital's governor, who has implemented several policies to improve the city's badly ailing finances.

Abrasive, outspoken and opinionated, Mr. Ishihara is precisely the kind of politician urbanized Japanese voters have long shunned. Yet last week, several people wished aloud that someone like him were on hand to replace Mr. Obuchi.

Yoichi Masozue, a political commentator who ran against Mr. Ishihara in the gubernatorial election, suggests one reason for his rival's popularity: ''The governors of the prefectures, like Ishihara, are directly elected by the people. They thus enjoy a more powerful leadership and legitimacy that way, and in a time of globalization, we need strong leaders with quick responses.''